MINNEAPOLIS, June 3, 2008—The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has revised its fish consumption advisory to include a large new body of data on contaminants in fish from Minnesota lakes and rivers.

The advisory is in a new format, designed to make it easier to understand. It also encourages people to eat more fish.

For more than 20 years, the fish consumption advisory has helped Minnesotans choose which species of fish to eat and how often in order to minimize their risks from contaminants in fish while gaining the many health benefits from eating fish.

Health experts, including the MDH, recommend eating one to two meals of fish per week.  The advisory is also aimed at encouraging people to eat more fish. Previous guides advised consumers that they could eat fish that had a once-per-week recommendation OR a meal of fish from the once-per-month category, but not both.

Now, MDH is advising consumers that they may eat fish from the once-per-week category as well as the once-per-month category. “The health benefits of eating more fish are clear,” McCann said. “Additional data and a thorough analysis show that this slight change will still be safe for people eating fish.”

This year’s edition of the advisory includes a substantial amount of new data collected from numerous species of fish from more than 250 lakes and rivers.

The advice for specific lakes and rivers in the advisory has been redesigned to include information on three contaminants instead of the previous two: perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) joins mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as one of the contaminants that can affect how much fish people should eat. The tables also include changes in how meal advice is displayed.

The fish advisory is available online at: www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/fish/eating/sitespecific.html.